


Duty [darkness]

by taichara



Category: Rockman.EXE | Mega Man Battle Network
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 01:49:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1839922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another world, Rockman's duel with Blues FZ does not occur; and when the Network falls, the Netsaviour navi is left stranded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duty [darkness]

  
There was no true time here in the forgotten prison of the Network -– not that time mattered at all, after the End -– but nonetheless he kept his own carefully-marked time. The time since his entrapment, the time spent since he had changed; time wasted on escape attempts, time devoured by his hunter’s mission.

Hunting; yes, it had been hunting, once. Before he had found a more pressing meaning, a greater urgency, to his activities.

Stalking soundlessly through the webworks and nodes of the under-network, the dark dull black of his form was picked out in bloody red and darkened gold; his hair coiled around him like angry serpents or heavy black whips. He still had a task to carry out, a greater thing now than his once-master could have expected of him perhaps -– and he intended to see it to the bitter end, consequences be damned.

The network would still remain …

With a snort of bitter humour, he reflected on the irony that the Network was this dark and dire place. All that was left -– but it would stand, and continue to stand, so long as _he_ continued. He would make sure of that. He policed and commanded, and his underlings obeyed -– obeyed, or were shown the error of their ways with a sharp swift blade or burning flame.  
Insurrection would not be tolerated.

Traveling further from the deepest and central nodes, he swept towards the outskirts to test again the ragged half-lit barriers, the server tele-pads that led to nowhere.

One day, the connection would be restored; one day, there would be something on the other side -–

 

-*-

 

Galling! Unbelievable! Assigned to hardly anything more than watching and spying -– copyloid assignment or no -– while Hikari prepared to stand down the Cyberbeast.

Granted Hikari -– or Rockman, rather -– had been taken over by the _other_ Beast, and because of that had more than a vested interest in putting a stop to Barrel’s defection, Wily’s plans, and all the rest of it –-

But, still! Pushed to the sidelines like this … Enzan ground his teeth as he made yet another series of careful upgrades to Blues’ code. Not overclocking, not _quite_ yet; but close, very close. Stronger, faster -– too fast to track -– and as precise as the edge of a laser-blade as Blues was now, there was no way Hikari would win their next battle. Not a chance.

Returned to his PET, Blues studied the changes to his coding as Enzan waited for Hikari’s inevitable return to Akihara and that lull in all the chaos in which he could issue his challenge -– as a test of skill for the coming showdown, of course –-

And then the message arrived from the Netsaviours.

 

_[During this upheaval on the Network, we intend to press any advantage.]_

_[You are assigned to the Undernet: your specific assignment is to corner and terminate the rogue navi, Forte.EXE._

_[We trust that your recent advances will serve you well.]_

 

_Forte._ No better feather in the cap, that one -– even Rockman had never succeeded in defeating him for good. Reaching the Undernet would require a number of reroutings through the Network’s architecture … but Blues was all but autonomous in design. Working without direct guidance or chip-feed was nothing new.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Blues was uploaded to the neon pathways of the Network and searching out an Undenet gate, his master’s last-minute instructions sent into his code even as they were spoken via the imagelink.

The dully-glowing firewall -– concealed within three nested processes -– resisted Blues’ bypass, as it always did. But not strongly enough; and Blues was ghosting onto the Undernet’s dim and dreaded datalines, alert and waiting for the virii and malignant navis that never failed to greet him. Sure enough, he was in combat within moments; but it was ended almost before it had begun. The code-upgrades were perfect.

Gasping out a shred of information -– under duress -– before dissolving into pixels and stray data, one of the navis gave him the first hint he required. Dispatching the miscreant quickly, Blues battened onto Forte’s trail …

… and for one sickening moment, the Undernet crashed. Or, nearly so; some horrible surge had washed through the nodes, killing virii and causing riots amongst the navis as the architecture shattered and warped. Blues stopped still, opened an imagelink.

 

_[Master Enzan?]_

 

Nothing. Not even a broken transmission.

 

_[Master Enzan? Sir?]_

 

Still nothing. Alarmed, Blues fought his way back to the firewall -– and found nothing. Nothing but the tatters of derezzing code, and the Undernet-ward tele-pad. The network was simply _not there_ \--

Trapped. Locked within the Undernet, cut off from his operator, his master.

His very soul howled at the thought. But, if the Network was gone … if the Network were gone, there would surely be chaos. Everything in the physical world would come screaming to a halt as humanity staggered -– and there would be no time to fuss about looking for a lone navi on an isolated system, should anyone even expect that system to survive …

No. _He_ would try. Surely. Wouldn’t he?

Staring at the empty void beyond the shattered firewall, Blues felt despair snapping at him with icy jaws …

 

-*-

 

Oh, how he had flung himself at the torn and tattered firewalls, clawed his way past those mocking barricades! And he could still remember, even now, the horror and despair that had washed over him like some blood-dimmed tide when he saw the truth.

The network had not been simply shut down, or severed -– it was well and truly _gone_. Destroyed, obliterated. Not so much as a flicker; it was as if never was …

Displeased, dispassionate, he shook his head against the memory and his hair coiled madly about him as if alive. He had given it all up to continue at his task, even his desperation to hear his master’s voice; he would not test to see if that memory could overcome him now. There are nodes to patrol, and insurrections to deal with.

If there was to be anything worthwhile left of the network to be discovered, he must continue with his directive. The sullen inhabitants of the Undernet -– the _only_ net -- _will_ continue to obey; they have no choice.

If he must serve, then they too shall serve …

 

-*-

 

It was tempting -– so tempting! -– to give up right then and there. To end himself in a shower of tiny lights, a blade through the soul and then oblivion. To be alone, cut off; it was unthinkable! What else could there be left, with his master now gone -– he might as well have been on Mars, for all that Blues could reach him now -– and the network, nothing but echoing nothingness?

Sinking slowly to the darkly shining path beneath his feet, Blues called on his sword and steadied his resolve. Nothing left –-

No.

That was not -– quite -– true.

His operator, his master, was gone; but duty remained. And his duty was to preserve and protect the Network, even if –-

Even if the corrupt and cast-off system he stood within was all the “network” that remained. He was the only one present, only one left, to do so.

Steeling himself against the waves of helplessness that still threatened to wash him away, Blues slowly began to climb back to his feet, the quivering ice-grey flag of his hair betraying the turmoil still trapped inside. And as he did so, a dark and patch-coded navi stole up close. Proper, law-abiding navis, and those with operators, were not welcome in the Underking’s abandoned “kingdom”, and Blues looked to be an easy mark -– until the gleaming blade snapped out, and buried itself into the skulking navi’s torso.

Face an impassive mask behind a mask, Blues twisted the blade and sliced his would-be assailant clear in twain; then called on his shield and readied his coding for Fumikomizan, Step-sword, as the rapacious creatures’ many fellows began to close in. As he prepared for the combat, a certain serenity began to settle within Blues’ whirling mind … Yes, this was his duty. The Netsaviours may well need this isolated system in the end; and then, they would need it cleansed of taint and darkling inhabitants.

This was as good a time as any to begin –-

The battle was over swiftly, almost too swiftly for Blues’ state of mind. Unmindful of the slashes and shots that tore at his frame and left him bleeding pixels into the datastream, Blues launched himself into the fray with cold implacability tempered with a grim purpose.

The rabble-navis and their viral pets were overwhelmed as he sped and slashed and took them to pieces with swift surgical precision, their bruise-dark frames falling apart like gruesome rain before fading from existence. His shield became defense and weapon both, warding away their blows and crushing them against node-pillars, against each other.

It was indeed over too quickly for Blues’ needed catharsis.  
One straggler left, now, and pleading for mercy …

He lifted his buster to destroy the blankly pleading face, and then relented. Moving swift as thought, Blues pinned the mewling undernavi to the path beneath his feet.

 

“Listen to me.

“This place _will_ be brought under control. My control; my control and therefore the control of the Netsaviours.

“You will abide by my wishes, or you will be deleted.

“Do you understand?”

 

Blues hardly waited for the panicked, groveling response. With a shove of his foot, he pushed the nameless navi stumbling to his feet again.

 

“Go tell your friends the same.

“If they wish to take issue with me, they are free to make the attempt.”

 

The navi fled, and Blues stood silent.

 

-*-

 

His careful tour of the under-network’s fringes dropped him suddenly into the midst of a criminal free-for-all; a riotous black-market of shady deals, half-viral programs for sale or trade and a pack of insurrectionists who resented his presence still.

The wiser Under-denizens backed away and fled as he approached and they saw the mask of his face, saw the blood-red of his anger burning brightly behind the shadow of his visor. The foolish saw and ignored, or were wrapped up in their ‘business’ and did not see at all -– and these he cut down without mercy in a flurry of bloody blades and buzzsaw pinwheels of violet hellfire.

No more warnings. They knew the rules, now, and ignored them at their peril.

Barely acknowledging the shaky pleas and oaths of those who fled and were still fleeing, he left them to their own devices and continued on. There was much to inspect, and fools to be dealt with on too often an occasion –- but he knew his duty, and would impress it upon the under-rabble if it took til the end of days.

One would have thought that the randomness of his circuitous route would discourage such gatherings. Ah, well. There were castoffs and criminals, barely useful for restoring the nodes …

Passing a stretch of network-maze still blackened and cracked leading down into the depths, he was surprised –- just the merest fraction -– that it remained untouched.

Perhaps the natives feared to do so, as they feared him, had once feared another.

 

-*-

 

The word was passed along by shattered navis, the scattered fragments of virii left in his wake and the slow stubborn restructuring of the Undernet itself. There was resistance, of course; Blues expected nothing less of the mis-programmed creatures. But the last alterations to his code were his final blessing, and the former Netsaviour wielded them against all comers.

Eventually the challenges slowed, then all but stopped. And Blues turned his attention to one other task, that one last request he could perform: until the Black Shadow was hunted out, the Undernet would never be secured. Until the Black Shadow was destroyed, Blues’ efforts were mere castles in the sand.

To make his authority real, to honour his former operator’s wishes, he needed -– wanted -– to kill Forte.

Finding the rogue navi was no easy task; though he recovered the trail with effort, tracing the too-faint data-trace without aid drove Blues to his limit. It led into the depths of the network itself, to processes buried so deep even the long-gone programmers surely had forgotten them …

And there, amongst splinters of data set as headstones for every navi he had devoured, Blues brought the Black Shadow to bay. Hunched and feral, the remnants of the Cyberbeast’s data clinging to him like the tattered cloak he affected, Forte nonetheless acknowledged Blues with a bow and a polite smile of too-sharp teeth, his eyes like bloody coals.

 

“I have heard of your presence here in this darkened place, Netsaviour.

“Do you think to throw yourself away, facing me now? Do you wish a swift end to your pain?”

 

In answer Blues’ blade flared into life; and he beckoned Forte to advance.

 

“No. I think that I’ll kill you, madman.”

 

Straightening, stalking slowly-so-slowly closer, Forte shook his head and set the shreds of cloak fluttering in an unfelt wind.

 

“Foolish.

“If you think that you can, human’s slave, show your strength to me --!”

 

And with those words the Black Shadow was airborne, stooping on Blues like a maddened beast. The world exploded in violet fires, as a torrent of hell’s own agony rained down on Blues and the datafields tore around him. Earthshaker –-

The flames cleared, with Forte quick to stalk and claim his prey –- and saw only a fading phantom, a mocking shade, before Blues descended on him in the twisting corkscrew attack of the Blade Dance. Scorched and weeping pixels, Blues struck true; Forte’s dark aura faltered, and the blade bit deeply home.

The mad red eyes flared.

 

“ _Insolent_ \--“

 

Toxic blade springing to hand, Forte surged forward to cleave into Blues, hooked his weapon into the suddenly-appearing shield, and tore it to ribbons. Pressed the attack, his aura closing in -– and Blues pivoted to lock their blades together, brought up his now-free arm and buried his buster in Forte’s gut.

Pixels scattered as the Black Shadow howled. And then -– fast, so fast too fast -– Forte was skyborne again, then perched on Blues’ own uplifted blade for a heartbeat, perched like some darkling statue before lashing out savagely with a kick to Blues’ face strong enough to tear free helm and visor and leave pixels bleeding in their wake –

Screaming a curse, Blues dropped and ducked, raking his assailant with another flurry of buster-fire. Grinning hungrily, Forte backed away to gather himself for another strike, twin buzzsaws of hellfire spinning towards Blues

\-- who used one for cover of his own, and came up all but at Forte’s throat to drive a blade tempered with cold hatred home again and again, his speed like hell’s own lightning. Again the shadowy aura faltered; and this time it did not rise again under Blues’ desperate assault.

He took no time in waiting for the barrier’s regeneration; threw up one of his own -– a feeble thing, without his shield -– and launched into a redoubled flurry of the Blade Dance, flashing around the staggered Black Shadow as his sword bit deep, deep and again and he moved like water, twisting, twisting, avoiding the spatter of data and blood-pixels –-

Snarling with pain and fury, Forte brought two busters up and unleashed a barrage of toxic charges. Caught unprepared, Blues fell like a stone.

 

“This is your end.”

 

He barely heard the words, soft and venomous as they were, Forte’s speech cultured still despite the agony and his own fury. But the sudden building of dark power, that Blues heard all too well -– the soul-shaking whine of Forte’s inferno.

The ravening mass of flame roared towards him, and he groped desperately for cover, anything –-

Headstones flickered as he staggered back, shining like mirrors in the unrushing blast of the Black Shadow’s rage.

Without thought Blues dropped and rolled. The blaze swept over the shining pillars, and he heard the mind-freezing roar of agony as the blast reflected. And then, the sound of a body crumpling slowly to the ground.

Barely holding himself together, Blues clawed back to his feet and staggered towards the writhing, flickering Forte. One stroke, just one sword-stroke would end it -– until, somehow, the monster renewed himself, clawing back to life as if a vampire in truth.

Unless.

Unless Blues did as the Black Shadow had done, was created to do ... and restored himself with the strength of his vanquished prey. Was the trick that swept throughout the Network so different from the monster’s own? Only not so permanent.

This would be.

Haemhorraging, vision fading, Blues stood over Forte and stared into the hateful, hated eyes, ignored the snarl of thwarted hunger. Then he fell to one knee, and plunged a hand through the long-scarred sigil to tear free the Black Shadow’s hated soul.

It was a surprisingly quick -- and pleasant -- meal.

 

-*-

 

One shadow replaced by another, perhaps; but he had no care for such thought, and less care for the fear of the underworld’s inhabitants. Let them fear, so long as they obey -– obeyed when he called them to restore the nodes, and then stayed out of his path. Beyond that, he did not care.

One cycle, one moment, one tick of the phantom clock, and there would be contact. There would be an outlet, and he would report that his duty had been fulfilled -– the black beast destroyed, the insurgents subdued and brought to heel, the fragment of network shored up and sustained.

Until that time, he would control this place with a grip of iron. Until that time, he would answer the castoffs and criminals with the only thing they could understand -– power, and pain.

They would not tear him from his place. He would devour them before that came to pass.

He knew his purpose.  



End file.
